AFL names Essendon in drug scandal

The AFL has identified multiple premiership-winning club Essendon as one of two cases of possible performance-enhancing drug use within the code, with multiple players potentially given the drugs without their know­ledge or consent.

The revelation follows Essendon’s voluntary approach to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority last week, before the release of an Australian Crime Commission report alleging that doping and match-fixing were widespread across more than one football code.

“We’re talking to all clubs in the process of this investigation," AFL deputy chief executive Gill McLachlan said on Sunday.

“The Essendon football club has come forward to the AFL and to ASADA and proactively advised us of concerns they have. The AFL is aware of potential multiple breaches at that club."

Mr McLachlan said the AFL was aware of an unnamed second player at another club also implicated in performance-enhancing drug use. In both cases, the alleged drug use had occurred in the past, and did not involve players scheduled to play in the 2013 season, Mr McLachlan said.

He added that the AFL was not aware of any cases of match-fixing within the code.

“We will be working through the process of speaking to all 18 clubs because there are vulnerabilities and issues identified to us that need to be mitigated and protected against," he said.

The 2013 AFL season would continue as planned, but there were “some potential historical issues we are investigating".

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The doctor at the centre of the Essendon scandal, Stephen Dank, also worked in a consultant role for half a dozen NRL clubs, including Manly and Cronulla. Mr Dank is scheduled to give an interview to the ABC on Monday night, in which he is expected to declare his innocence and claim he is being used as a scapegoat.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration tried at the weekend to close an online loophole that has allowed one of the drugs at the centre of the doping scandal, the peptide hormone GHRP-6, to be bought freely on the internet without a prescription.

On Sunday, federal Justice Minister
Jason Clare
and Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
called on clubs to name the players involved in doping and match-fixing.

West Australian Premier
Colin Barnett
has called for tougher controls on gambling advertising, saying the reports of drug use, organised crime and match-fixing were fuelled by sports betting.

“I don’t want to interfere in the way people live their lives, but I think continual sports betting advertising showing men in stylish suits and attractive women as though this is the cool, proper thing to be doing is not appropriate," Mr Barnett said.

“I particularly object to it being exposed to young children."

He would raise the issue at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting if he was returned as premier after the March 9 elections.Mr Barnett said he was not against gambling overall, but thought that advertising had gone too far.

“Sports betting and the advertising of it is just out of control, particularly in the day time when you have children sometimes very young children watching sports events as they should," Mr Barnett said.

But bookmakers say radio and television broadcasters agreed with the government last June to limit the promotion of live odds during sports broadcasts. The agreement banned the promotion of live odds during play.

The broadcast bodies Free TV Australia, Commercial Radio Australia and the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association are drawing up codes to be submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Sportsbet executive chairman Matthew Tripp said the company worked closely with former sports minister Mark Arbib to reach the agreement. Mr Tripp said bookmakers “did come to the party and agree that integrated content and the promotion of odds once a game had started was probably a little too much."

Bookmakers are still allowed to advertise odds before, after and at scheduled breaks during broadcasts. “I don’t really have an issue with that," Mr Tripp said.

Following a motion last week, a Senate inquiry is also set to investigate the effect of gambling promotion around live sports.

About $2.5 billion worth of bets are lodged with Sportsbet annually, mostly online. Mr Tripp said consumers might feel they are being bombarded with advertising because it was only about five years ago that online bookmakers were allowed to advertise on television and radio. “Now you see us in the mainstream… and it does feel like that it is a boom period at the moment," Mr Tripp said. “It’s a competitive market that we’re in. We’re all working hard and putting up big dollars to acquire some of these marketing assets."

But Mr Tripp, who is the father of young children, said he didn’t “shy away from our obligation to do the right thing by the community and by minors."

Mr Barnett’s mention of “men in stylish suits" seemed to point to the aggressive marketing campaign of Tom Waterhouse’s eponymous online wagering company. The bookmaker was reported to have signed a five-year deal with Channel Nine worth $15 million, for exclusivity over the channel’s AFL and NRL footy shows, which would include the presentation of odds during scheduled breaks during games. Mr Waterhouse declined to comment on the calls to curb advertising.

Alan Eskander, the managing director of online bookmaker Eskander’s Betstar, which takes about $300 million worth of bets annually, said he was “not a believer in big government". Although the company doesn’t advertise during sports broadcasts, Mr Eskander said if parents were opposed to their children being exposed to gambling advertising they should switch off broadcasts. The television networks would then need to weigh up if ratings or advertising revenues were more important, he said.